As Grand Empress Dowager
After Emperor Xuan became emperor, Grand Empress Dowager Shangguan, still a teenager, faded from the public eye. Apparently, to pass her time, she would often receive her Huo relations as guests, and Emperor Xuan's empress Xu Pingjun often had meals with her. She and Empress Xu appeared to have a cordial relationship, and she was in all likelihood not involved in the plot of her grandmother Xian (顯), who murdered Empress Xu in 71 BC by poisoning her to allow her daughter (and Grand Empress Dowager Shangguan's aunt) Huo Chengjun to become empress. Oddly enough, Grand Empress Dowager Shangguan's relationship with her aunt and empress appeared to be cooler than her relationship with Empress Xu, perhaps because the empress was an aunt to her.
Huo Guang died in 68 BC. After Huo's death, his sons, sons-in-law, and grandnephews remained in important posts and were made marquesses. The Huo family lived luxurious lives and acted as if it were the imperial household. Emperor Xuan, unhappy about the Huos' arrogance, began to gradually strip their actual powers while formally keeping their titles impressive.
In 67 BC, Emperor Xuan made his son Liu Shi (劉奭, later Emperor Yuan), by the deceased Empress Xu, crown prince, an act that greatly angered Lady Xian, who instructed her daughter to murder the crown prince. Allegedly, Empress Huo did make multiple attempts to do so, but failed each time. Around this time, the emperor also heard rumors that the Huos had murdered Empress Xu, which led him to further strip the Huos of actual power.
In 66 BC, Lady Xian revealed to her son and grandnephews that she had, indeed, murdered Empress Xu. In fear of what the emperor might do if he had actual proof, Lady Xian, her son, her grandnephews, and her sons-in-law formed a conspiracy to depose the emperor. Their plan was to ask Empress Dowager Shangguan to invite Emperor Xuan's grandmother Lady Wang, Prime Minister Wei Xiang (魏相), and Empress Xu's father-in-law and the deceased Empress Xu's father Xu Guanghan (許廣漢), planning to ambush them and kill them (whom the Huos considered political rivals), and then depose Emperor Xuan and make Huo's son Huo Yu (霍禹) emperor. The plot was discovered, and the entire Huo clan was executed, leaving Grand Empress Dowager Shangguan, who apparently was not involved in the plot, entirely without family.
The only reference to Grand Empress Dowager Shangguan after that was that she greatly honored her teacher Xiahou by wearing mourning clothes for him when he died (although it is not clear when that happened). She herself died in 37 BC, during the reign of Emperor Xuan's son Emperor Yuan, and she was buried with her husband Emperor Zhao.
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Famous quotes containing the words grand and/or empress:
“The grand style follows suit with all great passion. It disdains to please, it forgets to persuade. It commands. It wills.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“We never really are the adults we pretend to be. We wear the mask and perhaps the clothes and posture of grown-ups, but inside our skin we are never as wise or as sure or as strong as we want to convince ourselves and others we are. We may fool all the rest of the people all of the time, but we never fool our parents. They can see behind the mask of adulthood. To her mommy and daddy, the empress never has on any clothes—and knows it.”
—Frank Pittman (20th century)